SEO for Small Business

Small businesses in small towns have been the backbone of America for centuries. In the early days the most common way to find a business was through word of mouth. In later years, as technology advanced, tools like the printing press, radio, television and other resources were used in promotion. When people wanted to find a product or service right away, a vast number turned to the yellow pages.

Search Engines Have Replaced the Yellow Pages

Today, when people want to find providers of goods or services, they go to the search engines. This has been going on for years, but it has become more dominant as the use of smart phones has increased. Businesses need to be found in these searches.

There are two ways for a small business to get into the search results that they don’t have to pay for. First, they can open an account on the search engine and sign up their business. This will list their location, their website and their contact information. The search engine also gives preference to local business websites in the rankings below the local results section. Second, they can target a niche market. With a specialized good or service it is easier to get ranked due to the lack of competition for the phrases that describe the good or service. Not all small businesses have a niche market they can target. So they need to focus on the local listing features of the search engines.

Business Websites Must Go Mobile

With the majority of searches taking place on mobile devices and the sale of desktop computers going down, a business today must have a website that will work well on mobile devices. There are a surprising number of businesses that do not have pages that will accommodate the smaller screens. They need to redesign their websites.

Business Website Redesign

For small businesses to get the maximum benefit from the web and the search engines, they must have pages that work on all devices. A website can be redesigned for a fraction of what it cost to build it. The website designer already has the content from the existing site to work with. All that has got to be done is to put that content in a different code format that will work with mobile devices.

SEO and Website Redesign

For a business that has an outdated website, redesign has two benefits. First, the site is easier to view and use on mobile devices. Second, it shows the search engines that you are targeting the mobile market. That will improve your search engine ranks for both mobile and desktop searches. Website redesign will pay for itself many times over for a small business.

Local Businesses and SEO

Local businesses sometimes feel pushed out by big companies in the search engines. But this shouldn’t be the case. The search engines have done a lot to accommodate local businesses in their local markets. They favor local websites for area searches and they have created local maps that focus strictly on the businesses in the local area. All a business has got to do is work with the tools available in Google and Bing to get into those searches. If you want help getting your website working in these searches then just contact us.